Cargo theft across North America is becoming more organized, strategic and more expensive — and in Canada, the official numbers may only tell part of the story. Equité Association says Canada’s cargo theft problem may be larger than official figures suggest.

Trailer theft surged in 2025, climbing to approximately 970 incidents nationwide — up from about 570 in 2024. Yet reported cargo losses did not rise at the same pace, suggesting the industry may be absorbing more theft than it publicly records.

Sid Kingma, director of investigative services, Western and Pacific Canada, at Equité Association, said final 2025 national numbers are still being validated, but one trend is clear – theft in the trucking and supply chain industries is clearly on the rise.

“If we look at tractors, trailers and cargo, the biggest increase we’ve actually seen is in the trailers… it’s almost doubled from what we saw in 2024,” Kingma said.

Geographically, Equité recorded approximately 1,601 thefts in Ontario in 2025, compared to roughly 240 in Alberta and 180 in Quebec. The figures include tractors, trailers and cargo. Peel Region and the Greater Toronto Area continue to account for a significant share of incidents, reflecting the density of distribution centers, freight terminals and warehouse clusters.

Kingma added that while Ontario leads in total theft volume, Alberta’s numbers also remain significant on a per-capita basis, “right up there,” following Ontario.

Why is cargo theft underreported?

What makes the trailer spike particularly concerning is what it implies about cargo theft.

When trailers are stolen, cargo is typically stolen with them, Kingma explained. If trailer theft increases dramatically but cargo theft does not rise with it, the logical explanation is not that thieves are leaving freight behind — it suggests cargo losses are not always being reported.

Kingma says there are two reasons that could explain the underreporting: reputational and insurance risks.

“Sometimes it’s reputational, because the company that gets the cargo stolen from them just doesn’t want to let people know, because it can affect their reputation, and their contracts, and those kind of things,” he says. “Other times, depending on the value of the cargo, sometimes [the loss] doesn’t meet the thresholds for the deductible on the insurance policy, so it’s just easier to pay [out of pocket]. And some companies have sort of a hybrid model, where, up to a certain threshold, they cover it, and after that, they can make a claim.”

Recovery rates

The national cargo recovery rate was 13% in 2024 and dropped further to 9% last year. The trailer recovery rate, meanwhile, stood at 64% in 2024 and dropped to 44% in 2025.

The disparity highlights how cargo — unlike equipment — is often quickly redistributed and difficult to trace once stolen.

Kingma pointed to a whiskey theft in the Toronto area last summer as an example. After the load was stolen, secondary vehicles arrived at a pre-arranged location, transferred the alcohol and dispersed. The trailer was left behind.

“They don’t care for the trailer. That’s not the valuable piece to them. The cargo is,” Kingma said. “When the cargo is stolen, the organization or the people that steal it already have a purpose for it and know where it’s going.”

In terms of the most targeted commodities, grocery items continue to top the list, followed by automotive parts and building materials, including copper and other metals. Kingma says it is because these goods are widely available, in high demand, and relatively easy to resell.

Tracking gaps

Beyond underreporting, Kingma says Canada also lacks the structural tools to properly track cargo theft once it occurs.

Unlike vehicle theft, there is no standardized national system to identify and catalogue stolen freight. Vehicles carry VIN numbers that are entered into the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC), allowing officers anywhere in the country to instantly confirm whether a vehicle is stolen.

Cargo, meanwhile, has no such equivalent.

If officers execute a search warrant and discover pallets of motor oil or antifreeze — Kingma said, sharing a real-world example — there are often no unique identifiers linking those goods to a specific theft. Without serial numbers or standardized reporting mechanisms, police may have no way of determining ownership.

Equité, however, maintains its own cargo database, which sometimes allows investigators to confirm stolen goods and return them to the rightful owner.

Another issue is that there is no national cargo-specific crime code in Canada.

At year-end, police services report crime intensity index data to Statistics Canada under defined categories such as theft of a vehicle or theft from a vehicle, Kingma explained. Cargo theft does not have its own classification. Instead, incidents are recorded as theft under or over $5,000 or other thresholds. In cases involving deception or double brokering, theft is reported as fraud.

The absence of a dedicated reporting code makes it difficult to extract accurate national statistics or measure year-over-year trends. Kingma is often asked about how big the scope of an issue really is, and the answer can never be exact. “We can’t say for sure. We can say it’s this big, but we estimate… We don’t know for sure.”

Tactics grow more strategic

Speaking of the tactics, he said, while opportunistic break-ins still occur, growth is strongest in strategic and organized thefts. Criminal actors impersonate legitimate carriers, submit bids using falsified identities and, in some cases, double broker loads to redirect freight to a different location.

“We’ve seen it where falsified documents got drivers into yards,” Kingma said. “What we’re telling transportation companies is that probably the best sort of strategy to combat that is just the vetting of all carriers that they’re using. Heavy, heavy vetting, because we’ve seen it — where that vetting has led to the exposure of the bad actors.”

When asked what heavy vetting implies, he said: “Do your due diligence on ABC trucking company [as an example] and make sure it’s legit. So make phone calls to the company, make sure their emails and their website — and all those kind of things that you can check — are legit… it’s just like they win the bid because they’re the lowest bidder… and you just go with that and don’t check, that’s exactly when those bad actors get into the system and they’re able to take it over.”

While much of the recent growth in cargo and equipment losses is tied to digital fraud and fictitious pickups, some other theft methods have also grown more aggressive.

One example is the so-called ‘Romanian rollover theft.’

“Basically, they pull up behind a moving transport truck with a vehicle, you know, on the 401 highway, doing 100 km/h. Two people get out of the vehicle that’s behind the transport truck, get on the hood, open up the back door of the transport truck, and then will get into it. And depending on what sort of cargo was in there, they’ll either steal it or part of it,” Kingma explained, saying a group operating in Ontario was linked to that method in 2024. He said there have been anecdotes circulating that this type of group might be active again, but stressed that this has not been confirmed as of yet.